The lawyers promised an “armada” of other lawsuits making discrimination claims in other regions of the country. “The case we are starting today is the first of many,” said Brad Seligman, one of the lead plaintiff lawyers.

In rejecting the earlier lawsuit, the Supreme Court found that the plaintiffs, who sought back pay for 1.5 million women nationwide, failed to prove that the legal and factual issues involving those women had enough in common to be examined as a single class.

In its June ruling in Dukes v. Wal-Mart, the Supreme Court did not decide whether Wal-Mart discriminated against women. Instead, the Court concluded the suit did not satisfy requirements that the people in the class had questions of law or fact in common.

Joseph M. Sellers, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said the new lawsuit was tailored to discuss the Supreme Court’s concerns.

The lawsuit describes Wal-Mart’s California region being governed by a “good old boy philosophy” where job opportunities were passed along word-of-mouth, usually to men. One California regional vice president, for instance, suggested that women did not seek management positions because of their “family commitments,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit suggests that such attitudes were pervasive company wide.

The origins of the suit date to 1999, when Stephanie Odle was fired after complaining that she was discriminated against because of her sex. She discovered that a male employee with the same job and less experience was making $23,000 a year more than she was.